side-note as a food for thought:
copy&paste and bit of editing of a comment i posted roughly 1.5 years ago on a 5A YouTube Shout-cast:
why positing sth from the past?

• because this comment conveys a message that is persistent throughout balancing and should be considered regardless: im well aware that it refers to technical definitions, so without basic knowledge of systems theory they won't be understood, i try to simplify as much as possible though.

• Also im well aware that those would only be useful as an assistant device and still decisions should be based on community participation
{ Such as Beans explained by the example of insta-cap engineers in TD which is an unchangeable "signature" feature belonging to TD regardless of dis- or advantages compared to alternatives,
or more players confirming that the Apache ground range value 4c0 is fine:
AirToAir wise the Apache with 4c0 range and the Orca with 5c0 range do match exactly due to missile traveling time.
The distance gap of 1 cell is matched due to the limited, constant speed of the Orca warhead projectile, ergo distance traveled over time, whereas the Apache airtoair warhead insta-hits, ergo skipping the distance in an instant of time)
This doesn't mean that the comparison of AirToAir combat also holds true for AirToGround combat under ALL circumstances, but is as a very accurate approximation from my experience. Both GDI and NOD have Air units with complementary purposes and there is no need to mess around with long tested units.
Those ranges have been edited in the past in OpenRA/TD and then reset back again, there was already lots of testing done and these values seem to be optimal.
Also, from a historical point of view the Original Orca range was labeled as "LONG", whereas the Apache range labeled as "MEDIUM"https://cnc-comm.com/files/CC-Manual.pdf }

• In the future, decisions hopefully will be aided more by using scripts such as lukassss (from RA) experimented with in RA: calculating values and deriving averages from many replays played through this script, a very useful idea, i think, as it gives objective threshold value-ranges and possible indicators on where there are unbalances to be found in the game.

• here the mentioned comment:
"
the majority of the core-players in TD recently come up with more and more different and complicated, partially mutually contradictory ideas in balance, at the same time AoA does more changes as ever
( which is precisely what pulse and me have predicted over a year ago before it started happening ).{ due to the idea of changing a units price and buildtime by 100% (and some other vaules of it), which also shows how little those behind that agreement to this change know about balance in general }

AoA mostly won't even mind to listen or short-answers them.
Well, one can say: But they - the regular and very strong players (with different play styles) - can't beat AoA 1v1, so he must know what he is doing more as them. Also, as soon as someone would beat AoA eventually { like kyrylo in the first TD-league... },
he would immediately listen, only then to argue again against those suggestions with hilarious to funny provocative, non-constructive arguments.

All of that however still does not pinpoint precisely to the core problem i want to convey:The major issues on how balancing is being done in TD are:
1) not consistent within his (AoA) own adjustments and
2) not aware of any positive feedback of those.{ with the term positive feedback i refer to as it is defined in systems theory: a model which error signal is increasingly deviating from a desired target value due to positive feedback:
translated into balancing in very simple terms this means: changes which do solve a problem here, but lead to more problems elsewhere, which are then handled again with even more changes which cause even more unbalances and so on without end }.

He is doing a lot, indeed. So don't take my words: ask him: on which basis does he arrive at decisions on what needs to be changed and on which protocol testing is being done, as well as on which logic, software the entire system is being checked or stabilized.﻿
"

One single balance change can have a significant ripple effect on the game and cause more problems than it solves. APC were buffed a year or two ago, now they have been nerfed worse than they were before the buff. Lets just leave them alone now for a while. Making all of these radical changes in a short period of time can never end well, and just results in a new game anyway. Better to make your own mod altogether with all the fancy changes. This never ending balance is tiresome, especially when the pace of change increases rather than decreases. At some point you have to say, at first glance it looks like TD, but this is not TD anymore. just the same looking buildings and units. That day will be sad.

Well to also say something about "keeping" TD as it is:
TD might be an underated game but why is that the case?

Well there are multiple reasons why people choose RA over TD because of influencers and content creators like FiveAces or SoScared promoting RA over the past years (while they both love TD) or the fact that RA has way more tournaments than TD.

TD has issues that are not so easily solveable without changing the "spirit" of the game itself. It is not just balance bu tthe gameplay itself that has been designed over the years (by AoA) to be more centered around one bas gameplay and promoting GDI (the only way I can explain why Nod is so laglustering).

At some point you just have to move forward and accept that your beloved game just has issues and might be the reaosn people do not stay and play TD (as beans mentioned yesterday that people come and play TD for a few hours but than either leave OpenRA forever or go and stay in RA).

TD is a fast paced and cool game to either go on a killing streak for GDI or hunt down GDI scum with the Brotherhood of Nod. But TD in it´s current state is just so blank and one dimensional that it hurts.

That is why Im doing this to bring in some fresh air and also enable more strategize by buffing underrated units, people like Stuka or Schmusifant (and others) are very positive about this project and Im gonna keep finetuning at it until it just plays well. Nontheless the point is that I want TD to become a game were people actually play it and also stay.

Updated my mod to 1.4. Changes have been marked as green that refers to Patch 1.2, red for Patch 1.3 and blue for Patch 1.4 changes.

Conyard:
- Cost from 4000$ to 3000$- BaseProvider: Cooldown: 75 --> 0
With the removals of the BasePRovider cooldown you will no longer have a penalty upon placing a structure.
This change is overdue and finally has to be made. I guess people feared that defense structure spamm might become a thing in TD but seriously you cannot win a game by turtelling your base. TD is a very fast game based arround building units and striking the opponent where it hurts most. Such a penalty also hurts people playing in 1v1 where fast players (like me) screw themselves by placing the less important structure first than having to wait to place (for instance) a refinery or another factory.

Power Plant:
- Cost from 500$ to 400$To improve the early game.

Advanced Power Plant:
- Cost from 800$ to 700$

Refinery:
- Storage capacity from 700$ to 1000$

Repair Station:
- Energy cost from -30 to -10
- repairing buffed: HpPerStep: 1000 and Interval: 7After the removal of the prerequisite on the MCV it lost it´s reason to be there so I made it easier to build it without going low power.
The repair buff was a nice idea by Orb.

Communication Center:
- cost from 1000$ to 1500$This change will definately slow down the game by a lot and also will shift the usage of A10 a bit through out a game.
A higher cost T2 prerequisite will not only slow down the A10 usage but everything else unlocked with it and above aswell.

Advanced Communications Center:
- Cost increased from 1800$ to 2000$
- Energy cost decreased from -150 to -100
- HP increased from 130000 to 210000- undone a mistake from -100 to -150
Mistakes have been made.

Temple of Nod:
- Reveals shroud increased from 6c0 to 10c0The changes to both Superweapons were made because both provide the 3rd tech level and superweapons.
Why should such buildings be handled different because of the superweapons themselves.
Both have enormous strength in their own right (Ion Cannon obliterates armies in an instant
while the nuke levels bases)

All defences:
- normalised their building speed to match their costThis change was necessary to finally stop instant snowballing after winning a fight to put up
some emergency defences to hold out longer until replenishing your own army.

Guard Tower:
- Requires now Power Plant instead of Barracks/Hand of Nod to be build
This change will finally bring more variety to builds rather than forcing you to open barracks to
defend against the current (very) strong allins that exist in TD.- reverted requirement from Power Plant to Barracks
- Armor set from wood to heavy
- cost from 600$ to 500$My previous attempt buffed factory/airstrip openers which caused me to redo this change into something different.
I changed the armor type of the Guard Tower and decreased it´s cost to first buff it against infantry (which it is supposed to counter while nerfing it against vehicles that carry anti armor weapons to clean up it´s weird behaviour. This should promote barracks openers but I´m pretty sure factory/aristrip are still the way to go opener on most maps.- cost from 500$ to 700$
Due to the fact that build durations on defences had been normalized the instant death´s in TD have been drastically reduced to my liking but the tower spamm (that I saw coming) is now a thing in team games (not the case in 1v1) so to tackle that a bit while still keeping them good I increased their cost (whcih also increases buildtime).

Turret:
- Requirement from Barracks to Factory/AirstripThis change was made to first give Factory/Airstrip openers some possibilities to defend against early vehicle raids (that usually end the game in 3 minutes) which is ultimately boring and has been proven multiple times especially through out the whole TDGL (next to broken APC´s). I know this change promotes said openers more than Barracks first but this change also makes sense to get anti vehicle turret with vehicle production and Guard Tower with infantry production.- cost from 500$ to 700$
Due to the fact that build durations on defences had been normalized the instant death´s in TD have been drastically reduced to my liking but the tower spamm (that I saw coming) is now a thing in team games (not the case in 1v1) so to tackle that a bit while still keeping them good I increased their cost (whcih also increases buildtime).

SAM Site:
- reduced cost from 650$ to 600$

Obelisk of Light:
- From T3 (Temple) to T2 (Radar)The Advanced Guard Tower of GDI is overall far more potent than the Obelisk.
The GDI Tower is superior in cost and energy, being able to hit Air while also strong against all ground units.
If the Obelisk is too powerful then I will reduce it's attack speed. (pretty sure I dont have to
since a camping Nod player is far weaker than an aggressive one since Nod has to swarm the map to surivive)

Advanced Guard Tower:
- increased cost from 1000$ to 1250$
- restored it´s weapon from the original means it now has a 2-burst missile weapon with longer reloadThis I adjusted to first of all nerf the AGTW against ground units but buff its behaviour against Air. The AGTW is an overperforming defence structure
especially in team games. It is stated to have a weakness against infantry but that is not the case. It´s damage and spammability was outshining the Obelisk of Light.

Rocket Soldier (E3):
- Movement Speed increased from 42 to 56 to match the minigunnerThe current meta annihilates the use of Rocket Soldiers outside of APC´s.
Also the slower a unit in OpenRA is the worse the microability becomes.
This change should finally clean up this mess.- Reduced movement speed of Rocket Soldiers from 56 to 48
Due to feedback from the community that TD tries to be a bit more realistic and also to the fact that E3´s are actually stronge rthan those in RA I reduced their speed to be slower than Minigunners but faster than their old version that was 42 only. The speed increase is just necessary to make Rocket Soldiers finally apply better to the OpenRA engine since slow units get punished by the engine in terms of microability and usage outside of APC´s.

Flamethrower (E4):
- Increased movementspeed from 56 to 71In original TD the Flamethrower was as fast as the grenadier so I made them even.
In my opinion the Flamethrower is an underwhelming unit.
If this change was a mistake I can easily readjust.- undone the speed buff
Due to feedback and people showing me that the E4 is more than a cigarette igniter I have undone this change.
It would be cool if people keep testing this unit outside of Chinook drops to show me it´s worth on the battlefield.

Engineer (E6):
- Now has external capture and set to 7 secondsAs soon as the new code hits were engineer locking is removed it will also be implemented
and the capture time will be set to 5 seconds. (So it works like in KW and RA3)

Commando:
- Cost from 2000$ to 1400$Another unit that is very underwhelming. Due to it´s equivalent cost of 20 Minigunners who are just better so with
1400$ in might see use outside of dropping or to clean up Chemical Troopers (even though 20 Minigunners did a better job).

MCV:
- Decreased cost from 4000$ to 3000$
- Buld time reset to match the cost (72 seconds)
- Removed Repair Station as the requirement (still requires Radar)
- HP reduced from 120000 to 60000
- Shroud reveal increased from 8c0 to 9c0Due to the fact that the 4k MCV is just impossible to build (especially 1v1) without dying to counter attacks the cost of
the MCV have been set to 3000$. Back than when 2000$ MCV was a horrible meta I can understand being scared of by this but I assure
you the 3K MCV has been tested already and it is still not possible to go for a second MCV early on (till 7th minute) without
dying to an immediate response from your opponent that might even use 2xFactory/Airstrip at that point. Even the removal of
the Repair Station hasn´t improved this strategy but people are no encouraged to rebuild their MCV when they lost the first one.
The HP has been cut in half due to the infinite possiblities and MCV allin can possibly offer in the early stage of the game.
It has not been abused to an extend yet due to people taking a like to go for macro games rather than ending it quick but
these allins are kinda impossible to hold if you dont do the same move. This kind of gameplay is toxic and I feel like
shouldn´t be possible. If ppl are scared of losing the MCV tio Ion Cannons than they should take in acocunt that the Nuke
can even destroy the Conyard itself. Also wasting your Ion Cannon on an MCV rather than annihilating a big chunk of the opponents
army will lead into dieing to a counter push. The vision range has been increased to immediately deploy your MCV if enemy units
appear since the HP was cut in half.- undone HP nerf and vision buffMy idea to nerf the Monstertrucking of MCV´s has proven successful but also had a negative sight effect of the game become boring and stale.
In short: it nerfed allins so hard that it removed build orders which I dont appreciate. I want TD to become a competitive faster paced OpenRA game
with strategic decision making rather than snowballing limited tankbattles out of one base the entire game.
Also this might cause "MCV-Monstertrucking" to reappear but first I´m the only one doing that atm and 2nd I´m pretty sure ppl will find a counter.

Harvester:
- Increased Movement Speed from 85 to 100
- Readjusted buildtime from 27 secs to 24 secsThis change was an idea of Orb to encourage long distance harvesting and I like this idea aswell.
Readjusted the buildtime due to my politics of reducing all the customized buildtimes.- undone the movement speed buff
I got some feedback that this change might not be necessary and harvesters do have enough movementspeed to long disctance mine anyway.
Also harrassing started to get pointless when even tanks cannot hunt them down anymore.

Rocket Launcher:
- Renamed it to MLRS
- Increased damage against None from 24 to 40This thing is way weaker than the Nod artillery in any regards but killing Light Armor. When players (especially Nod players)
perform heavy infantry pushes against GDI...well let´s just say GDI has a very very hard time dealing with those. So this buff
should help out GDI on that regard while also improvng the MLRS.
Oh yeah btw I renamed it because it feels good man. - undone the damage buff against None
Since GDI players started to build this artillery unit only without any kind of thought put into and it also was able to kill everything with good accuracy.
The Nod Artillery might still be stronger but has less accuracy and speed in it´s projectile so let´s pray I dont have to change anything in that regard anymore and it just works.

Stealth Tank:
- Cost from 900$ to 950$
- reduced damage from 6000 to 4500
- increased rocket count from 2 to 4
- speeded up the burst from 10 to 8The Stealth Tank always felt to me like a stealthed Nod Attack Bike and that is just not satisfying enough for a member of Kane
so I took an example of how the modern CnC´s handled the stank by increasing the rocket count to let it not only feel more powerful
but also increasing its value. If the Stank will overperform I might undo this change but for now I wanna see how this is going.- removed audio when cloaking
Another change to help Nod finally disguising their unit´s that are supposed to be "unseen". That stanks announce themselves on the battlefield not only gives away the fact that your opponent just produced a Stank not it also reveals that your opponent reaches T3 and is able to nuke you in a few minutes. This change is necessary to let Stanks finally unleash their full potential by striking because you dont see them coming.

Chinook:
- Cost from 750$ to 600$To encourage more dropplay.

Apache Longbow:
- Increased attack range of the gorund weapon from 4c0 to 5c0With this change it finally matches the attack range of the Orca. Im still pretty sure the Apache is underperforming.
It is an excellent Orca killer and okay against infantry and Artillery (it should be now better against those) but
the Orca is still a way better tool to use.

Airstrip Delivery Plane:
- increased movement speed from 326 to 1000
This change finally does what it has to do: reduce the time till Nod vehicles get delivered from 12 seconds to 6. I finally found what I really wanted to change and this will essentially reduce the buildtime of Nod vehicles from their buildtime +12 seconds to their buildtime + 6 seconds. Of course I wont reduce it to zero since first the plane still should be seeable as part of TD and second Airstrips are not blockable means you cannot stopp Nod from producing vehicles unlike GDI and their bloackable factory.

Reworked the Oil Derricks:
- Cash Tick Amount from 25$ to 50$
- Cash Tick Interval from 125 to 200
- Now upon capturing provides 250$ (everytime you capture and recapture)In theory provides a bit more money over time while also finally able to deny bigger intervals when killing the structure.
Refund of 250$ to speed up the gameplay with Barracks opener (which is currently far inferior to Factory/Airstrip opener).
Due to the change of the Guard Tower and other changes the Barracks opener should not become the way to go strategy while
also improving other openers beside Factory/Airstrip.

Removed the damage of exploding Husks:
- Idea of Anjew and Orb and I like that too

A10 Strike:
- Reduced damage of the MG against Light Armor from 100% to 30%This should now make sense (means flesh torn apart by a Machine Gun while Armor surviving it)
while also rebalancing this imba ability that can literally turn the game upside down.

Added a new GainsExperience System:
This link provides you with all the information that you need to understand what has been changed: https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/issues/15164
In short:
- removed movement speed buffs
- removed accuracy buffs
- flattened ressistance, damage and attackspeed buffs
- increased healing on heroic status since the old one was just way too weak and pathetic
- old system had 4 ranks while the new one has only 3 (Rank 1, Rank 2 and Rank 4 (Heroic))
- everyone (not just yourself) can see the veterancy on your units
This change has been done in Shattered Paradise and increased the depth of gameplay and performance.
Units now have an easier time to rank up while also being able to see how experienced the units of your opponent are.
This will also now enable Vehicles to finally achieve more than just Rank 1 since they finally can trade off quicker.
The buffs have been flattened so it is easier to understand for everyone how much stronger a unit becomes by ranking up.

Future changes:
I might try splitting Guard Tower to GDI and Gun Turret to Nod only like in the original

Last edited by ZxGanon on Fri Oct 05, 2018 11:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Well to also say something about "keeping" TD as it is:
TD might be an underated game but why is that the case?

Well there are multiple reasons why people choose RA over TD because of influencers and content creators like FiveAces or SoScared promoting RA over the past years (while they both love TD) or the fact that RA has way more tournaments than TD.

TD has issues that are not so easily solveable without changing the "spirit" of the game itself. It is not just balance bu tthe gameplay itself that has been designed over the years (by AoA) to be more centered around one bas gameplay and promoting GDI (the only way I can explain why Nod is so laglustering).

At some point you just have to move forward and accept that your beloved game just has issues and might be the reaosn people do not stay and play TD (as beans mentioned yesterday that people come and play TD for a few hours but than either leave OpenRA forever or go and stay in RA).

TD is a fast paced and cool game to either go on a killing streak for GDI or hunt down GDI scum with the Brotherhood of Nod. But TD in it´s current state is just so blank and one dimensional that it hurts.

That is why Im doing this to bring in some fresh air and also enable more strategize by buffing underrated units, people like Stuka or Schmusifant (and others) are very positive about this project and Im gonna keep finetuning at it until it just plays well. Nontheless the point is that I want TD to become a game were people actually play it and also stay.

With the latest release that is not the case.

Of course you make some valid points, I'm very happy to test out and consider any new ideas, I think most players would be. I think the player base will always be limited due to the games age and limited audience. The most die hard fanatics play on CnC net but for many of us the UI is just too dated to even use. I worry that the game could be compromised to a point where its not the same anymore and ultimately it has no effect on increasing the payer base anyway. Basically I think that if you implement all the most popular ideas there will be no overall increase in players over time, and the game is never the same to boot. I think RA was always more popular back in the day, so it stands to reason that it still is now.

I think its dangerous to potentially alienate long standing players and the core community to gather a few potential new players thats by no means guarenteed, but again im more than happy to continue to play your maps and offer fair scrutiny. At the end of the day, it is just a game so I will say me piece and play whatever happens.

The core community is still present, lets keep them happy, if we can get new players and keep people happy then great, but if we aren't careful we can kill off what we have. Lets play!

Personally I think we need AoA more than ever, we are going down a very dangerous road here in my view.

PS,

I must point out that there has been a significant increase in the player base since this latest release that implemented AoA changes and with community involvement, more players than ever before to my knowledge, we currently have 4 separate games running at one time and a 5th lobby open, all team games too, a further warning to not hasten ahead with any drastic measures that are likely to do more harm than good.

OpenRA is made for reworking the old Westwoodgames. That means making the same with an open source engine. You are making EA CnC Balancing. What works only when you have modern tech upgrades and some different factions more.
Thois is just oldschool original RTS. Means different unit play. Real micro play by moving it.

Better you just change simple AoA Balancing thinks. All what he does were right. But he made Mammoth Counter with chems and Stanks. Will work when stank is finaly Heavy Aromor type and have -30HP.
Differents between ltanks and mtanks is also to big. On Tech 2 GDI Never have to make Rocket Soldiers. Make ltanks and mtanks different with moving HP and Damage but still slightly even. Means both sides have to make Inf as Support.
Next is Fun. Bikes have to much HP. When you spam to much from it. Game is Over in many ways. Split it and attack from two sides. Run straigth into the Base and kill important Buildings. Use it as Hugh Help to kill Tanks. With 80HP they are more squishy but still usefull. You can also give them one turn point more.
After thos changes the game is much better changed and not new Spam experience. Also still real CnC and not dumb Shooting Gallery.

@010010 so you want it to be the same as original (which was nowhere near being balanced and unplayable in multiplayer), then you say that AoA's balancing was correct (even though it's nothing like the original same as Ganon's), and then suggest a bunch of stuff that doesn't follow neither original nor AoA's balance...

AoA spent the last couple of years arguing for the engineer change, but agreed to defer it until the engine code was fixed (it will be for the next release), and there was some kind of consensus in the community for adopting it (which won't be possible until at least the next playtest + test maps + playtesting + some kind of miracle).

AoA spent the last couple of years arguing for the engineer change, but agreed to defer it until the engine code was fixed (it will be for the next release), and there was some kind of consensus in the community for adopting it (which won't be possible until at least the next playtest + test maps + playtesting + some kind of miracle).

This was one area I disagree with AoA, I think the engineer change is a big mistake for reasons I stated above, I think on the whole though AoA generally gets it closer than anyone else with good balancing, the main thing is he doesnt rush it. Obviously all balance changes are open to a certain level of subjectivity resulting in differences of opinion and no technical 'perfect' balance.

AoA spent the last couple of years arguing for the engineer change, but agreed to defer it until the engine code was fixed (it will be for the next release), and there was some kind of consensus in the community for adopting it (which won't be possible until at least the next playtest + test maps + playtesting + some kind of miracle).

This was one area I disagree with AoA, I think the engineer change is a big mistake for reasons I stated above, I think on the whole though AoA generally gets it closer than anyone else with good balancing, the main thing is he doesnt rush it. Obviously all balance changes are open to a certain level of subjectivity resulting in differences of opinion and no technical 'perfect' balance.

Yeah and that´s why TD is the most played mod and everyone loves AoA. Oh man beans sometimes I dont know if you are a huge troll or actually serious.

Naturally if I disagree with ZxGanon I must be a troll, I guess the only way I cannot be a troll is if agree with what you say, or be quiet altogether.

As I pointed out this weekend we have several games going all at the same time, I've not seen those kind of numbers for years, so this release must take some credit for that, and unless I am mistaken those were AoA change mostly, with help from the community. So credit where credits due.

If you want me to change my mind you have to convince me, not throw insults and hope for compliance,that doesnt work on everyone you know Zx. . I also wont take part in any AoA hate campaign, or any campaign against anyone for that matter. AoA has put a hell of a lot of work into TD over the years and some of us wont forget that so easily. If I get the feeling there's some kind of politics going on I will challenge it. You were very friendly with AoA until he didnt follow your ideas, then you turned on him as fast as the eye can see. I don't like how that smells.